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I am discouraged to find that many "gluten free" products have been processed by machines that are used to process other products, such as wheat, soy, dairy, etc. My question is: can the item in question be rinsed with water to eliminate the possible cross contamination? For example, freeze dried. If the product is rinsed (say strawberries or chicken) does that nullify the possible gluten? Or does gluten somehow manage to integrate into the very fiber of the product it touches?
Mandy
Dumb question, but here goes...
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While forceful washing would certainly remove most of the external gluten, if an item were contaminated, it certainly won't remove all of it. The problem with washing food, (especially meats), that may not be eaten immediately, is that it introduces a lot of bacteria that tend to rapidly spoil the meat, (much faster than if it were never washed. Now if you're talking about using something besides plain water, (such as a disinfectant), that's a different situation.
Anyway, the point is that water has no neutralizing effect on gluten - all that water can do is to physically wash it away. I don't have any information on whether gluten might somehow assimilate into another food, but it certainly seems to "attach", and stick pretty well. IOW, if a steak that you order in a restaurant arrives with a slice of Texas toast lying on it, just moving the bread, and scraping the surface of the steak, is probably not going to prevent you from getting sick. I doubt that washing with water would do much, either, except to cool the steak, and ruin the flavor.
Gluten is not water soluble. It's the gliadins and glutenins in gluten, to which we react. Gliadin is alcohol-soluble, and glutenin, is only soluble in dilute acids or alkalis. Together, they make up about 80% of the protein contained in wheat seed. If you should take a handful of wheat flour, for example, and work carefully, it's possible to wash away the starch, leaving the gliadins and glutenins behind, in concentrated form. That makes washing, a rather poor way to "de-glutenize" food, because it tends to remove wheat starch, while leaving behind the very peptides that cause us to react.
IOW, in order to remove the gliadin peptides from contaminated food, you would have to wash the food in alcohol, and in order to remove the glutenins, you would have to wash the food in either a dilution of acid, or alkali. Obviously, that would not have a very beneficial effect on the palatability, of the food, and might even impose a health risk, as well.
At least, that's how I see it.
Tex
Anyway, the point is that water has no neutralizing effect on gluten - all that water can do is to physically wash it away. I don't have any information on whether gluten might somehow assimilate into another food, but it certainly seems to "attach", and stick pretty well. IOW, if a steak that you order in a restaurant arrives with a slice of Texas toast lying on it, just moving the bread, and scraping the surface of the steak, is probably not going to prevent you from getting sick. I doubt that washing with water would do much, either, except to cool the steak, and ruin the flavor.
Gluten is not water soluble. It's the gliadins and glutenins in gluten, to which we react. Gliadin is alcohol-soluble, and glutenin, is only soluble in dilute acids or alkalis. Together, they make up about 80% of the protein contained in wheat seed. If you should take a handful of wheat flour, for example, and work carefully, it's possible to wash away the starch, leaving the gliadins and glutenins behind, in concentrated form. That makes washing, a rather poor way to "de-glutenize" food, because it tends to remove wheat starch, while leaving behind the very peptides that cause us to react.
IOW, in order to remove the gliadin peptides from contaminated food, you would have to wash the food in alcohol, and in order to remove the glutenins, you would have to wash the food in either a dilution of acid, or alkali. Obviously, that would not have a very beneficial effect on the palatability, of the food, and might even impose a health risk, as well.
At least, that's how I see it.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.